Tips for New Members...

There are so many new faces and fonts on this site; it's very exciting to see new posts and new ideas being published before the contest for the scholarship starts.

Of course, we all have our own ideas and experiences that we want to blog about. And we have different ways to express these thoughts and opinions. But I really wanted to write something specifically for you new members to read and, hopefully, take some advice and see how your blog can really grow.

It's natural to want to introduce yourselves to the rest of us; you're, essentially, joining a community and it's a polite thing to do to introduce yourself to older members of the community. But remember to keep a couple of things in mind as you run off to write your introduction post:

The teasers that this site uses only show the first couple of paragraphs of your blog. You want those couple of paragraphs to be gripping, to bring people into your blog and, hopefully, to leave their comments of appraisal or argument. When reading through the teasers of new blogs, I can tell you I skip over those that say something along the lines of "let me introduce myself" or do little more than to tell us your name, where you're from, and why you're here. And I know of others that skip them as well.

Additionally, as you begin writing more, there is a good chance that these introductory posts will go unnoticed after a while. Even when clicking on your user name, the site only lists your blogs 8 at a time. With so many members posting blogs, your introduction will not last long on the "Recent Blog Posts" list either. You can rob yourself of some valuable readers and a chance to say something people will search for when using a blog to introduce yourself.

If done well, you will introduce yourself to the rest of us by speaking through your blog and allowing your unique personality to come out in your writing. There are a few new users that have even sent me Private Messages to introduce themselves to me - and this is a great personal touch as well - and a great way to build your name for your blog without using an entire blog to introduce who you are to this site.

To be quite honest, I think introductory posts should be saved for the forums, if you really want to introduce yourself. But, there is no actual rule or anything saying that they have to be in the forums. However, I have gone ahead and started a forum topic for people to come and introduce themselves to the rest of us. I'd like to get to know everyone - I just prefer not to do it all at once in a blog :)

Another user and A-Team member of ProgressiveU, Reboloke, has also written her thoughts and advice to new members. I suggest you read through Reboloke's blog here and see what other bits of advice she might have for you. She offers a lot of advice regarding this matter.

So, if you'd like to introduce yourself as a new member or as a seasoned veteran of Progressive U, please feel free to do so here...

And, I do know that I am not the best writer on this site, and let's be honest - who am I to tell you how to write your blog or how to introduce yourself? So, it won't hurt my feelings if you decide not to listen to my advice at all. But I would still like to know who you are...

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